Comment on Krafton Issue Statement Regarding Subnautica 2
Poopfeast420@discuss.tchncs.de 2 days agoMy assumption is that Krafton expected the leads to put in 12 hour days 7 days a week to meet ridiculous expectations and the leads took some vacation time or something along those lines.
This is from the lead himself, on his movie production website:
I’m Charlie Cleveland and I’ve been designing video games for over 25 years. I founded Unknown Worlds and built games like Natural Selection, Natural Selection 2, Subnautica and Moonbreaker. I absolutely love making games but wanted to try something new.
At the end of 2023, I left San Francisco after almost 20 years and moved to Los Angeles to reset my life. Instead of taking it easy, I now find myself working on multiple film projects. It’s amazing how fast it’s all happening - being right in the thick of things makes it so much easier to meet like-minded people!
Doesn’t sound like the unreasonable expectations from the publisher are the problem.
Also, according to this link, he’s taking a break from making video games, for a couple of months now, before all this stuff was out.
Early release was supposed to be in 2024. We have halfway through 2025.
Lead devs have said the game is ready for early release, so they are taking a break from a game they feel is being delayed by the publisher. The publisher is whining about expectations, not obligations or anything along those lines.
I’m with the devs on this one, project burnout is real.
The leads allegedly also were looking to gain $225 Million dollars (supposedly 90% of a $250 Million bonus), so of course they are saying the game is ready.
Charlie Cleveland did say they were going to split the bonus with the team, but imma be honest, why not put that into writing? Why take that huge cut in the first place, and then trust that the leads are going to do the right thing.
I don’t think at this point you can really be sure of anything. Since the former leads have said they’ve filed a lawsuit (but not for what they’re suing), it’ll most likely come out at one point.
The publisher delaying the game would allow them to keep the $225 million.
See how this works?
The devs rushing the game out half added results in them getting $225M. So they have incentive to be shitty too. I don’t know enough about any of them to say which is more likely but that logic goes both ways.
Yes. That’s why I said nobody really knows at this point, except the people involved.
Ulrich@feddit.org 1 day ago
Sounds like they both said he took time off from gaming to make films.
Poopfeast420@discuss.tchncs.de 1 day ago
I mean the former leads (or at least one of them) say the game was ready for Early Access, the publisher says it wasn’t. This could be the deciding factor if the studio gets the bonus or not.
Although today the publisher said some previously leaked slides were real, that show how the potential EA release fell way behind schedule over the years and would have been pretty bare-bones and that a delay would have made sense.